ReThink Islam
ReDiscover God
ReKindle Your Soul
ReImagine Your Life
Welcome to ReThink
Some questions refuse to stay quiet. Questions about God, about meaning, about how to live with integrity and purpose in a world that grows more complex by the day. Questions about what fairness truly requires and what justice actually looks like in a multi-polar world that is crowded with competing faiths, rival cultures, and irreconcilable perspectives, each with an unshakeable claim on the truth.
For those of us who are Muslim, these questions arrive already in conversation with a tradition:
What can Islam genuinely offer our age?
What would a genuine Islamic renewal look like?
Not cosmetic renovation, but the kind of renewal that restores the soul of a tradition and brings its promise of Mercy, Justice, and Peace into living contact with the present?
These pages are my attempt to engage those questions, with the seriousness they deserve, and the openness they require — written not from a place of arrival, but from one of sustained, committed inquiry.
There is no shortage of voices speaking about Islam today — confidently, loudly, and often without the grounding that these conversations deserve. So, a word about who is writing this seems warranted.
I am a Muslim professor, with a fairly unusual background: an analytical social scientist by training, a Muslim scholar's son by birth, and a student of Islam by both. Thirty-plus years of rigorous academic research on one side; seven generations of Muslim scholarship passed on through my grandfathers and woven into the fabric of my upbringing on the other.
I offer these writings not as the final word on anything, but as the considered reflections of someone formed by that unlikely combination and humbled by the conviction that faith and critical thought were never meant to be separated.
— Prof. Fatih (yes, that is my real name — and yes, it essentially means Faith)
Finding Your Way Around
ABCs of Islam (top menu)
This is where I'd invite anyone new to the tradition to begin — short, accessible pieces written to illuminate rather than overwhelm. They address the questions that matter most:
Why believe in God? What is God in Islam?
Who was the real Muhammad? What were his teachings?
What is the Quran? Why do Muslims call it an “eternal miracle”?
What is jihad, really? (The answer may surprise you)
What does Islam teach about Jesus? about Mary?
How does Islam understand women?
And so on…
And wherever persistent misconceptions have taken root, these articles address them too, with the same care for evidence and fairness that any serious inquiry demands.
ReThink […] Series
These articles provide deeper explorations and critical/scholarly analyses that revisit, reconsider, reexamine, reassess, and yes, ReThink every aspect of Islam — belief in One God, the Holy Qur’an, and Prophet Muhammad’s teachings (peace be upon him) — with the aim to better understand what light they can bring to our present world.
These are articles are for readers who already carry some knowledge of Islam and are ready to do the harder, richer work of thinking it through along with me.
As I elaborate below (Why ReThink?), the idea of continuous renewal is a deeply embedded principal in Islam, rooted in Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)’s declaration that God will “renew/refresh” its religion (at least) once every century, through the work of true scholars and sincere believers.
I offer these writings as my modest contribution, with the hope that they can be one small brick in the renovation of the majestic palace of Islam.
Whatever brought you here, your questions are welcome. Use the form at the bottom of the page to send them along, and I will try to answer them in due time.
Not Sure Where to Start? Choose Your Adventure
Start with the ABCs — short, accessible pieces on the questions that matter most
Reflections for those ready to rethink, rediscover, and renew
You're in the right place — these pieces are written for open minds and honest questions
Rigorous explorations for readers already carrying some knowledge of Islam
ReThink is born out of a deep personal conviction: that the most pressing challenge for any Muslim today is to revisit, reconsider, reexamine, rethink, and reassess every dimension of Islam — and of faith more broadly — with fresh eyes and a fearless mind.
This conviction does not stem from doubt or weakness of faith.
On the contrary, it springs from an unshakable certainty that true faith is eternal and that the foundations of Islam are rock solid — like a majestic tree whose roots are anchored to the core of the Earth, while its mantle and branches soar to the sky.
And yet the tree is never finished — it grows, it stretches, it reaches. It is essentially reborn every spring.
Yet the tree can only continue to thrive through the deliberate work of the faithful, who must carefully evaluate which parts of Islam constitute:
Its roots — the core tenets of faith — to be protected with care and discernment against every distortion;
Its trunk — the core practices — to be nourished and sustained, lived rather than merely performed;
Its branches — the beautiful canopy of Mercy — to be tended with wisdom: pruned where needed, supported where they bend, and allowed to grow in new directions to cover new cultures and times;
Its leaves — the living, ever-changing expressions of the faith — to be held gently, and released with the seasons;
Its fruits — the raison d'être of the tree — that bestows heavenly bliss and blessings in this world and in the hereafter.
These fruits of inner peace, true joy, and justice for all can transform our earthly life into a heavenly existence.
Yet this glorious tree of true faith can only stay healthy, thrive, and bear its full load of fruits when it is meticulously maintained and lovingly renewed by the faithful.
For the first millennium of its existence, the Blessed Tree of Islam delivered fruits of Mercy and Justice in such abundance and continuity that were unprecedented in human history.
Since then, the natural processes that drive the ebbs and flows of civilizations — as well as the Muslims' weakening diligence — led to a gradual stagnation in the growth and evolution of the Blessed Tree of Islam.
ReThink is my small but deliberate act of tending. And it is an open invitation — to every Muslim with an open mind and a generous heart, and to every person of faith or goodwill who has ever sensed that the world needs something deeper than what it is being offered — to join in what I believe is the most urgent and most beautiful labour of our time.
LATEST POSTS
I was pondering a passage in the Qur’ān about the moon —“al-Qamar” in Arabic — and wondered if the word had any other meanings or metaphorical usage. When I checked the Quranic Arabic Corpus page, I saw that it lists a total of 27 occurrencesof al-Qamar in the Qur’an.
“Twenty-seven?” I thought to myself. “That’s only a few days shorter than the length of the lunar month.”
You see, this possible association — between 27 occurrences and the 29.5-days-long lunar month — popped up so naturally in my mind because when you read the Qur’an since your childhood, it is impossible not to become overpowered by its never-ending wonders and miracles that greet you seemingly every time you open its pages.
Yes, miracles… some of which are so profound and comprehensive that it would take volumes to show them in all their glory; others that are “bite-size,” so to speak — delightful wonders that can potentially be noticed by anyone who reads the Qur’an with an open mind and a sincere heart, and it increases their faith and warms their heart.
So, I had this nagging feeling — because the Qur’an never has a near-miss. Anytime it dangles a “marvel” or a “sign” in front of us that looks close-but-not-exact, you can be sure that there is a twist that we missed. And when we finally figure it out, we realize that the connection is even more perfect and beautiful than we had initially suspected.
As I was pondering these, I remembered a verse that mentions the “new moon.” Because there is a separate word for “crescent” in Arabic — al-Hilāl (الهلال) — this verse was not in the list for al-Qamar I had just looked up.
It turns out, the verse I had in mind was the singular appearance of al-Hilāl in the Qur’an (Q2:189):